The Girl Who Speaks of Sunflowers
by speaks
Summary: The first time they neared the ocean together, Mugen told Jin and Fuu in passing that all streams led back to the sea. For some reason they both remembered those words. Maybe this was why not one of the three looked back when they parted ways.
1. The Lion, the Lamb, and the Lesson

.

Preface

This will be a series of short pieces that will tell a longer story. I'm mirroring the episodic feel of the series. Some will be short, while some are longer. (This want to match the tone of the show also reflects in my alliterative title choices.) This is my attempt to reconcile my poor shot at a SamCham fic a while back, which was received well but seems soooo bad now that I look back on it. (Also wildly inaccurate and out of character in parts!) This chapter is also based on the fact that, to my knowledge, the three main characters were created to represent the past, present, and future. I don't know who they meant to represent each, but I think my guess is fair... I'll give you three guesses.

This is me bringing something fresh to the table, with a more developed skill set. After all, this show still has my heart in a big way. (Even though the fandom's small. Why is that btw? It baffles me to this very day.) OKAY so now that I've gotten my weepy speech out of the way, let's get on with the show, shall we?

_wrrh ch ch wrrh ch-wrh - samurai champloo~_

* * *

><p>. . .<p>

. . .

The three figures walked as they often had: in silence. Jin's silence was of the ever-indiscernibly contemplative variety, as per usual. Also as usual, Mugen's silence was more of the devil-may-care, couldn't give a shit enough to say anything breed. And then there was Fuu, who had been opening her mouth and taking deep breaths every couple minutes, before closing it again. As usual, it was clear there was something she wanted to say.

However, this time she held her silence. They trudged on through the dirt.

. . .

**The Lion, the Lamb, and the Lesson  
><strong>. . .

The unspoken weight that hung over them like a darkened cloud was the impending fork in the road, one that would be both metaphorical and physical. They'd mutually agreed it was time to part ways. There had been no teary goodbyes, not even from Fuu.

Not for the first time, Jin examined Fuu from his place in the rear. He had expected her to cry and yet she hadn't. He feared that perhaps she had used up all her tears on her two companions already. His eyes fell on Mugen, who sauntered with one hand on his sword handle halfway between Jin and Fuu. The rogue pirate had fallen back into his characteristically lax swagger, but it was clear in the way his steps were shorter, more staccato, that he was still harboring a hidden injury. If his subtle limp wasn't enough, Fuu's constant worried glances at his torso gave it away. Every third glance or so her anxious glance would roam further back toward Jin, then she would flush and look forward when she caught his eye.

They stopped at a brook when they came across it, deciding to take the opportunity for a late lunch. Mugen yanked off his geta and thrust his feet into the water with a disgustingly satisfied sigh.

"Gross, Mugen, you're getting your nasty feet in the drinking water!" It was the first words that she'd spoken in hours.

Mugen responded by bending over and dunking his head in the shallow water, then rising with a flourish and shaking off like a wet dog. She screeched her displeasure and he sneered like a madman. Jin counted himself lucky to be far enough from the water's edge that he escaped involvement. He wondered to himself whether this was the last time he would witness them arguing like children. Interestingly enough, he couldn't imagine it was so.

No one was quite sure how far ahead the fork lay. It could be an hour off still, or just around the corner. The apprehension was palpable.

"Mugen, stop it."

"Stop what?" he barked.

"Scratching like that! It took me two weeks to get those wounds to close up properly, so stop trying to undo my work."

Jin couldn't see Mugen's face from back here but he knew him well enough to know he would be scowling.

Barely a moment ticked by before Fuu glanced behind her again and stopped in her tracks. "Mugen, cut it _out_ already!"

"I ain't fuckin scratching!" But even as he spoke to her he continued picking at the skin on the palm of his hand. He was glaring, but almost immediately Fuu's expression changed from one of anger to one of fear. Mugen stopped too then, leaving Jin with no choice but to pause as well or else walk straight into his back. "It's just a splinter," Mugen grumbled. "God damn. Don't get yourself all worked up."

Fuu perked up at that. "Oh, is that all?"

"Yeah, so quit yer—what are you doing?" Fuu advanced on him, pulling the chopsticks from her hair as she went, allowing the strands to scatter to her shoulders. "Leave it alone." He stepped back from her, nearly into Jin, but she grabbed his hand and yanked it toward her face.

"Shut up and let me help you. Moron."

"Hn?" Whatever insult he was about to throw back at her was lost in his curiosity as Fuu bent over his hand. Despite himself, he allowed her to spread it palm-up and he leered at her chopsticks as as she stuck her tongue out in concentration. There was a moment of hesitation while she surveyed the three gruesome and still healing wounds where the mad brother's weapon had pierced his hand through. With painstaking ginger caution she brought the tips of her chopsticks to his skin.

Mugen growled his disapproval, but made no move to act on it.

"Dang, it's really in there. This is gonna take a sec. Hold your horses, okay?"

Mugen chose this moment to turn his withering glare on Jin. A lesser man would have cowed under the threat in Mugen's ice cold eyes. The puff to his lip, the set in his jaw, his manic eyes open slightly too wide. The look said plainly: _say anything at all and I will gut you like a fish._

"Almost got it," Fuu crowed. The intense concentration she was expending on the task seemed excessive, and incredibly, she'd gotten the better of Mugen with it. His long limbs were now slack as he waited mildly for her to find what she was looking for.

Jin folded his own arms into his sleeves as Mugen swore and Fuu apologized for pinching too close to his healing skin with her chopsticks. The scene was surreal, to be quite honest. It was like watching a lamb pluck a thorn from the paw of a lion. Try as he might, he couldn't picture Mugen sitting still for this at the beginning of their journey. Nor could he entertain the notion that back then Fuu might've offered her help to Mugen for such a trivial matter... Grave injuries were one thing. This was another.

Later on when Jin thought of the two of them, far down the winding road, it was always this scene that he recalled, this one last oddly serene juxtaposition of tempered wilderness and dynamic grace that stood as their faces in his memory. Fuu bent raptly over Mugen's palm, and he looking down at her with thinly veiled curiosity. Something was very clear in that moment, at least to Jin, and he remembered the corners of his mouth lifting up in amusement at the incredulous realization. Perhaps it was only by slight degrees, but this Mugen was different than the one who'd once helped burn down a tea house.

So she had changed him too.

When the fork at last presented itself, the anticlimax of the moment was stifling. Jin could only gather from the shared attitude of the two companions he now regarded as friends that they, all three of them, believed they would meet again. That was, if Jin knew them, as he was sure now he did.

He didn't look back when they parted. Nor did Fuu or Mugen, as he would have known if he'd turned to check.

In fact he felt at peace with their parting, if strangely dissatisfied. Why? He could only guess. He had not hoped to find enlightenment by holding his end of the bargain with Fuu, or to learn something—yet he he had. He thought again on that bright island day: the cliffside, when he had found something to give his life for. There in that moment had been the lesson. But now as his companions each walked their separate ways, the distance between the three ever widening, that glimpse of meaning ebbed away from him. Like a slippery fish it eluded his grasp and disappeared once more in the current.

He thought it over as he traveled alone for the first time in a year. His purpose had been served. He'd done the honorable thing and fulfilled the duty required of him. His late master would have been proud to see it. Shouldn't he be satisfied? Yet the nights grew rainy and the rain began to bleed into the days, and Jin felt no satisfaction.

In his heart he knew that he no longer lived for honor, nor duty, nor recognition.

Perhaps this was the true reason he chose to follow Fuu on her quest, Jin began to realize over the next few months, though through most of their travels he contented himself believing he acted on his sense of duty; all he truly sought was _reason_. Reason to swing his sword, like he'd felt every day he trained in the dojo long ago. That familiar comfort of working toward a goal. It had never mattered to him what the goal was, as long as there was something to strive for. Thus was the case with Fuu's request. It didn't matter what the goal. It was a goal. Jin followed.

In his entire lifetime he would never guess how close he had fallen to Mugen in this respect. Dig as deep as you want and you'd still find that the two swordsmen were as different as night and day: while Jin retained all that cold tradition of the past, Mugen dished out the unpredictability of the present. While Jin could have easily denied Fuu's demand for help, he followed her as per his personal ethical code. Mugen, on the other hand, had no such thing. Jin couldn't pretend he'd never been curious as to the once-pirate's reasons for tagging along on this errant quest. The most Fuu had ever dragged out of Mugen was that he went along with it because "It just worked out that way." Jin sometimes wondered dryly whether he'd agreed to follow Fuu on her journey simply because he had been bored that day. It certainly seemed like something he was capable of.

Of course, Jin would never find out exactly how close he had been to the mark. Or exactly how far.

One thing he would find soon enough, though, and that was that elusive fish he'd been looking for. The lesson.

If you called Jin a being of the past and Mugen of the present, then Fuu was of the future. Perhaps in the way a nearsighted man does not realize the trees have leaves until someone gifts him a pair of glasses, Fuu had provided her two companions with a service neither of them realized they needed.

_Direction._

This was the real reason the two men followed Fuu that day, though they each had their own name for it. "Duty." "Boredom." (Or if you asked Fuu, "a promise.") But what it boiled down to was a tuning of broken compasses. She'd given them something to walk towards. Now that the two of them had tasted direction on their tongues, they could never be fully content with directionlessness again. And not a one of them would guess which direction they were walking in when they split that day on the fork in the path, and how those directions would converge once again, away down the road. There would be twists and turns but they would converge.

The first time they neared the ocean together, Mugen told Jin and Fuu in passing that all streams led back to the sea. For some reason they both remembered those words. Maybe this was why not one of the three looked back when they parted ways.


	2. Sunshine Seeking

Mugen was a simple guy. He wanted few things in life, and needed even less. He didn't love anything, which made it pretty easy to—

Well, yeah. Alright. So he loved _some_ things. There were a handful of life's luxuries he couldn't live without, at least not for long. Things that crippled when he went cold turkey on. Things he yearned for. Basic things: food and sake and a decent babe to warm the sheets every once in awhile. Things he both wanted _and_ needed. He guessed that was probably what people were getting at when they said they loved stuff, so if that was the case, then he had to admit (reluctantly) there were certain things that had him whipped.

The sun, for starters.

. . .

**Sunshine Seeking**  
>. . .<p>

He squinted at the yellow bastard coldly, before shielding his eyes from the glare and sinking further into the shallow shade of the rocky incline behind him. Beads of sweat pooled on his forehead and in every crevice on his body. He panted like the dog he was.

Mugen hated the way the sun burned when there were no clouds or shade, like right now on this hellish summer day. The way it blinded him when he walked straight towards it on late afternoons was enough to send him into a rage. He'd stab the sucker if he could reach that high. At the base of the wall of layered rock there was still a small straggling pool of water; resting here in dips on the stony surface, it'd escaped being soaked into the earth for a few hours longer than the rest of the rains. The glint of refracted sunlight was what drew his attention to the still water. Bending eagerly toward it, he disrupted his reflection on the surface and sloppily scooped water toward his dry mouth. Probably good since he'd been sweating and pissing away all his bodily fluids like a pig in a sauna.

When the puddle had been sapped for all its worth he shouldered his sword and stepped out of the shade, back onto the dirt path. The sun answered by immediately baking the shit out of his skin. God, he hated the sun.

But inevitably, after weeks of rain he was always hungry for it. Out at sea the first ray of sun after any storm always struck him like a trumpet, and he'd never quite lost his sea legs. So yeah, whatever. He loved the sun. Even now, when it was pissing him off. Mugen loved sunshine. He liked to, y'know.. lie in it and shit. And the way if you looked straight at it too long you could see burnt imprints of it everywhere else you looked for for awhile.

Fuu always yelled at him for it in that shrill voice she reserved just for scolding him. As he glared into the sun he was walking towards now he heard her screaming. _You're gonna go blind, you moron!_

With a grunt of annoyance he stretched his arms behind him, casting a withering glare to his left. "I ain't gonna go blind, bitch," he snapped.

"Hn?"

Mugen glanced to his right, then to his left again, and let his arms flop to his sides. The road was empty for miles behind him, and ahead was nothing but more dirt. He scratched his head. Damn - he'd seriously thought he heard her for real - but of course Mugen was alone. He hadn't seen Jin or Fuu in weeks now, since they parted ways after shit hit the fan at the end of Fuu's wild goose chase. Mugen squinted at the sun again, accusingly this time. Maybe he was more dehydrated than he'd thought.

So he made his way off the path in the vague direction he remembered the river flowing toward as of the last time he'd crossed it.

Water. That was another thing he loved. Fuck if he didn't like sailing on it, even if he wouldn't quite own up to just how much he liked it. It wasn't the act itself so much as it was the ocean. Little credibility lent itself to those stupid-ass siren stories pirates and sailors alike spewed at each other in taverns and before storms. No, for Mugen, the ocean was the siren. He could go a long time without it but he sure couldn't go forever. No matter how long he stayed away he always ended up back there again. If that weird shitty feeling he got whenever he went out of sight of the sea was love, then why the hell not. Sure. He'd heard of stupider things.

He loved water in smaller ways too though, like right now as the icy current folded around him when he waded deep into the river and dunked his head. He liked the way sun and water cancelled each other out, much the way Jin's sword had cancelled his (though he'd never in this fuckin lifetime phrase it that way out loud). The sun stole his shit away and the water gave it back. No harm done. It worked out, yeah?

As for his strange moment on the road, Mugen could chock it up to dehydration all he wanted, but that funny feeling had settled over him again like the layer of dust on his clothes and it didn't go away after he'd inhaled enough of the river to make himself queasy. Even while he struggled to fall asleep that night against a gnarled tree he couldn't shake the feeling, and it pissed him the hell off because it wasn't foreign to him at all. He knew what it was. He wasn't no fucking idiot.

He'd turned to speak again and found himself alone. Again.

His foot tapped impatiently against a fat jutting root. His scowl deepened, like he could scare sleep into his body. Every morning for the last couple weeks had begun with the same steady rain. When he woke up he expected the light of morning, but was always greeted with gray and with the promise of more trudging through mud and sopping wet clothes. Every damn morning. There was always a brief moment of delirium before he fully woke up and remembered why the sky was so gray that he was filled with disappointment, at expecting the sun and not finding it. It was always right after that moment that he loved sunshine the most. When he realized he'd be going without it for yet another miserable damn rainy fucking day. Damned if he'd admit it to anyone, but Mugen missed the sun. He wanted it.

That wasn't what pissed him off the most though. He tapped his geta on the root so hard it began to splinter out of its place in the damp soil. What really boiled him was remembering that feeling he'd gotten this morning when he finally woke up to clear skies. The relief as he stretched in the sunlight. The trumpets. His clothes were dry and he was happy.

It was pretty frickin easy to make Mugen happy. Just give him what he wanted. Wasn't hard, since his wants were straightforward.

Well,_ usually. _

"Shit," he ground out at no one one in particular.

Mugen wasn't no damn moron! If he could've travelled far enough or fast enough to find clearer skies he sure as shit would've. He'd been trying, dammit, traveling for days in search of a ray of freaking sunshine. Mugen had never yet been able to resist the siren call of something he wanted, and _that's_ why he was pissed. Because it was his nature to go straight after it. But what_ was it_ that he wanted this time?


	3. Starts with Sunflowers

Something in the air smelled like trouble and it wasn't the scent of burning fish, or the vomit outside the doorway that Jun still hadn't found a spare minute to sweep some dirt over.

"Another round, wouldja, honey?"

The sparsely toothed man pinched her thigh before she bowed away from them under the promise of more drinks. Jun considered as she fled back to the kitchen that she'd gone into the wrong line of business if she wanted a quiet life.

. . .

**Starts with Sunflowers**

. . .

"What do you think, Naomi?" she whispered. Together they peered around the corner at the raucous group of unfamiliar men. "Should I be worried?"

"Yakuza if I've ever seen 'em," Naomi declared. "Better get their order out pronto. Don't ruffle any feathers, kid. That's all I can say. I'll walk you home later." Naomi was scarcely taller than her, and no thicker around the biceps. Some protection that would be.

Jun bit her lip and delivered the drinks. She patiently waited out the cat calls and whistles that accompanied each bend as she dutifully emptied her tray to the eight unfamiliar men.

"What'sa matter?" The nearest man grabbed her wrist, spilling a splash of the drink she was handing him. "You look so tense. I know a few ways to ease the tension." That elicited a round of chuckles from his companions. "You and me, after dark, your place? Or how about now, behind this joint?"

"I'm sorry sir, I must attend to our newest customer. I'll be back to check on you gentlemen in a moment."

But she had to pry her arm from his grasp, and rubbed the five sore white lines away as she crossed to the newest guest. He lounged into the farthest southern corner of the place without any of the loud flair with which he'd strode through the door, and promptly began to pick at his teeth.

Jun cleared her throat. "Today's special is the—"

"Fifty dumplings."

"Excu..." She was going to protest, but then second guessed herself and had to pause while she went over the menu again in her head. Just then a second realization hit her and she paused again to size up this man, who looked more an animated scarecrow than a human. She'd been right the first time. Incredulity was appropriate._ "Fifty?"_

The scarecrow bared his teeth in what he seemed to think was a winning smile, and jabbed a thumb in the direction from which she'd come. "I take care of those creeps. You give me fifty dumplings."

Jun swallowed when she followed his gaze to the alleged yakuza. They had seen the scarecrow pointing, and they looked angry.

"I don't want to make trouble," Jun insisted, "and besides, we don't..." but she quieted as the man rose and drew a long sword from a sheath on his back, and its grating metal was so effective a silencer in the room full of patrons that when she went on to whisper "serve..." it could have been a shout in the hanging stillness and expectancy. At this point Jun inched unconsciously to the side. Her would-be protector lowered his blade until it was laying horizontal, a silver finger of accusation pointing toward the source of Jun's anxiety, the eight men who now stood up as one, with the scarecrow's sword following them as they wove between tables across the long room with all the steadfastness that the needle of a compass points north.

"Dumplings," Jun breathed, and completed her retreat, back flat against the wall.

"Fine," the scarecrow said, "I'll take fifty of today's special then." She nodded slowly at him, feeling the hungry stares of the eight angry swordsmen, and when the scarecrow made his move it was with more fluidity than she would have believed possible of his lanky limbs. He flipped the table and went after them.

Jun shrieked and dove out of the way as swords clashed and bodies blurred. She couldn't with any honesty pretend she watched all that happened, later, when Naomi demanded details. Her instinct had been to throw her arms up over her head and duck under the closest table until the bloodshed had passed.

"I don't know why he did it." Jun took a long sip of the broth Naomi offered her. They were the last to leave, as usual. Though she wasn't scared to leave tonight, not after the ruckus the scarecrow had caused; she didn't think anyone would bother starting trouble here again for at least a week. "The man is psychopathic."

"But what was he saying to you after? Saw him talking to you before he stormed off." Naomi took away Jun's empty bowl and replaced it with a stiff drink. Jun accepted wearily.

"Wanted his fifty dumplings." At Naomi's look of abject confusion, Jun shrugged. "He wanted fifty bowls of today's soup for helping me out. I said I wasn't paying up. He implied I could give him something else, to which I politely implied he could shove it up the same place he shoves swords."

_Not like that, you dumb broad, _was what he had come back at her with. _You're nothing much to look at anyway. I'm just hungry! Fuck! _That was when he'd stormed out.

"Ain'tcha gonna even say thank you?" was what he drawled drunkenly when she and Naomi at last emerged from the dark building with her sights set on home and her warm blanket. She started in surprise.

"You're still here?"

"Seeing as how I'm starving to death," he went on, "can't see how I could've made it any farther."

"Jun." Naomi tugged with insistence on the sleeve of Jun's kimono, but Jun shrugged her off.

"Thank you for what? Ensuring the wrath of the yakuza comes down on my head?"

The man slumped against the side of her workplace gave a bark of laughter. "Those guys weren't no yakuza. So, you gonna fuckin' thank me, or what?"

"Oh." Jun and Naomi exchanged looks. "Then... thank you," Jun finally said, and shrugged off her fellow waitress's anxious tug once more. "It's okay," she whispered to her. "I'll see you tomorrow morning, go on ahead."

Jun thought again as she led this man who towered over her back to her house that she'd gotten into the wrong line of business if she wanted a quiet life. "Just shut up," she told the man even though he hadn't said a word, "before I change my mind."

And Jun proceeded to cook for the scarecrow fifty dumplings.

The moon was well through two thirds of its trek across the sky when she'd finished. She woke the snoring man with a loud clink as she set a platter in front of him. He eyed her with suspicion, like a dog who'd been trained not to take treats when it is finally offered one. "No way," was all he said. And then, scarecrow body be damned, he found a way to put away every last one of them. Jun found herself laughing at him. For herself she'd made only eight. They didn't talk; what would there have been to say anyway? She didn't even know the mans name. But she found herself liking something about him anyway, despite how terrifyingly brutal he had been earlier. He finished at the same time she did, and they set down their chopsticks together.

"The wench followed through," he said, punctuating his sentence with a loud belch before going on to add, "who'da fuckin guessed it!"

Jun nimbly stacked their empty plates and rose to take them to the stone basin. "You are not used to men of their word?"

"Hell no!" he told her.

For once Jun left the delicate china all in a pile without washing it and returned instead to her place at the table. She knelt, hands on her knees, and peered across the table at the strange specimen in her home. He opened one eye lazily and stared back. "Oi, what?"

"So are you happy?"

His lip curled into what she could almost call a snarl. She was beginning to think he was more wild dog than scarecrow... And everyone knows you shouldn't feed wild dogs. They grow comfortable. A flutter of unease swept through her and she inched away from him, ever so slightly.

"The fuck kinda question is that?"

"I just meant—about the dumplings." She turned away, embarrassed and a little angry. "You got what you wanted, didn't you?"

The man picked his teeth without averting his gaze. What an animal. There was almost a full minute of silence before he deigned to answer her. He said it as he got to his feet, throwing his answer at her like a bit of spare change over his shoulder. "Got what I asked for."

She followed him to the door, surprised. It had begun to dawn on her that she may have to kick him out, but apparently not. Good thing too, because he didn't seem the kind to go quietly if he didn't want to. But he stopped in the doorframe and leaned there, framed by setting moonlight, arms folded in the most lax way, as if he'd been born to stand in her doorway.

"So," Jun ventured, one hand poised on her hip. "If you were so sure I wasn't gonna pay up, then how come you helped me at all, eh stranger?"

The man in her doorway shrugged. She imagined she saw hay stuffing fall from his sleeves. "Bored."

"You like to play hero when you're bored?"

One of his eyebrows twitched. "Lotta strangers come through here right? Like the low-lifes you thought were yakuza?"

"Uh.. Yes," she admitted. He hadn't even deflected her question, he outright ignored it. The manners on this one! "We come by many travelers since the main road passes through."

Scarecrow chewed on that for a moment. His fingers drummed on the hilt of his sword as he asked, "Y'ever meet a four-eyed samurai?"

Jun giggled, but quickly stilled her laughter at the look on his face. He was being serious! "No, I don't think so, stranger."

He nodded, like he'd been expecting her answer. He let his hand fall from his sword and he turned to go, before stopping one last time. Without turning he posed his one last question: "How 'bout a girl.. who speaks of sunflowers?"

Jun giggled, without qualm this time. So there was a girl.

"No," she said coyly, "but I've met a walking talking scarecrow who speaks of four-eyed samurais and sunflower girls."

"Eh." He dismissed her and strode away into the night, with one final word. "Nevermind." Jun waved but he didn't turn to see. Just as inexplicably as he had come the scarecrow was gone.

Jun didn't think of the scarecrow again until months later, when she sat down with the last customer in the bar. It was a traveller passing through, as customers so often were, and travellers always had something interesting to say.

"What's your story?" Jun said.

The girl set down her drink and brushed her hair from her eyes. "Why do you ask?"

"Last customer of the night always comes with a story." Jun winked, and gave her a nudge to indicate she wouldn't bite.

The girl brightened, and suddenly became an open chatterbox. "I have loads of stories. But I'll tell you the best one I have. It all started when I left home,"—she paused here to summon courage with a deep breath and gaze off to the far side of the bar before going on in a softer but more intense tone—"to search for a samurai who smells of sunflowers."

"Sunflowers, eh?" A smirk crossed Jun's lips. Could it be?

"Yes," she affirmed. "I know it sounds crazy."

"Nothing is crazy," Jun said. "Have you ever met a samuai with four eyes?" she ventured demurely. "Or a scarecrow that talks?"

The girl gripped the table for support, her face rich with emotion. "What the heck kinda question is that?"

"Just small talk. Never you mind." She pushed the girl's drink back toward her and gave her best and most reassuring toothy grin. "Now go on, dear, and tell me the story that starts with sunflowers."


	4. Directionless Dogs (Part 1)

"It's bad to go on feeding that thing like this. You're only prolonging its pain and—yech, I'm going back inside."

"You have no heart."

Fuu scraped the last bit of meat from the plate of scraps, and the mangy animal licked at it lazily without lifting its head from the ground. If she hadn't been scared to catch a disease from it she'd have the poor thing cradled in her arms; the dog had gotten in some fight or another and had been dying a slow death behind their bar for almost a week. Yet as long as it was still breathing, Fuu would go on giving it scraps.

. . .

**Directionless Dogs (Part 1)**

. . .

"I've a heart," Jun defended, one hand on her chest, "but I've also a brain. And I know a lost cause when I see one."

"You really think he's done for, JuJu?"

"Aye. Now come on already. It's as chaotic in there as a bees under a bear's breath! I need you focused on your tables, flower girl, not on this creature again. Naomi took a chance on you and I don't wanna look a fool for vouching. Let him die in piece," she added, dropping the harsh tone for a more sympathetic one, "and come inside."

"But—"

"Neh." The elder waitress took Fuu's sticky plate from her hands and stacked it onto the hasty pile balanced against her hip. "Look here." Without upsetting any of the plates, she bent and waved away ten or so flies to point at the dog's wet, crusted eyes. "It's not the injuries or anything." Though the injuries were bad, Fuu had patched them up days ago. "It's here, right... here." A fly landed on his eye and the dog blinked slowly but didn't move an inch. "Light's gone," Jun decided. "It doesn't even wanna try. The dog hasn't moved an inch since it laid down here last week and it's never gonna move again. It's got no reason to."

Fuu was left in the bitter afternoon chill by herself. She pursed her lips and folded her arms tight to block out some of the sweeping wind, but soon heard Naomi calling out her name from within.

The dog blinked. It stared not at Fuu but at the flies.

"Don't think about the flies, buddy," she whispered to him. "Think about the meat."

As an incentive to live she pushed the remainder of yesterday's chicken toward him, and he turned his droopy eyes on her as he licked at it again. On a sudden whim she pulled the meat away. She scooted it a foot away, where the dog was close enough to scare off any would-be avian thiefs, but far enough to not be able to reach. Then she went back to work.

"I'll be damned," Jun said later that afternoon when she came back from her break. "The dog moved."

Fuu stretched her arms behind her back and sighed with satisfaction. "I knew it." After their shifts were over Fuu took out more scraps and Jun followed, pretending not to be curious, and watched Fuu scrape it off, this time three whole feet from the dog.

"What are you doing now?"

"Giving him something to work toward."

"You think it'll help?"

"Got him moving in the first place, didn't it?"

And it was doing so a second time. The once-doomed dog interrupted them by giving a loud pitiful whine and inching itself a shallow pace across the gritty sand. It was clear in the way it moved that its injuries had begun to heal.

Jun chuckled wryly and nudged Fuu's hip with hers. This girl continued to surprise her, every day. "I guess even dogs need a sunflower samurai."


	5. Directionless Dogs (Part 2)

Jin woke up one morning in the spring with the answer on his tongue. He'd spent so much time wondering about it, yet when it finally came it came while he was sleeping. He'd dreamt not of his past, for once, not of memories good or bad. It had been a field grown over with flowers to which he'd never been in this life. And when he woke up, he opened his eyes to the endless blue sky, he knew.

_I am in need of a sunflower samurai_.

. . .

**Directionless Dogs (Part Two)**

. . .

The road for Jin had been long since Fuu had found her Seizo Kasume. For a time he had wandered, until eventually he found himself at the dock where he had said goodbye to Shino. He knew he'd not come there by accident. Yet he regretted it, because he could go no further than the shore. It would be a long time yet before he could see Shino. It had only been a year and a half since they parted, and it would be another year and a half yet before she could see him again. And she would. But... not until then.

After that he only wandered.

The morning he woke with the answer, he was sleeping by the shore in a growing fishing village far in the north, tucked away in a hidden valley at the foot of a mountain. Seagulls squawked and wheeled overhead like boats across the blue. Jin pushed his glasses onto his nose and stood. When he rose he felt it was the first step of his second journey, and perhaps all the steps from that fork in the road to here had only been an intermission of sorts. Now, now was Act Two.

But it wouldn't be until nightfall that he truly saw the way he would be walking. It took until nightfall to realize what would be for him the Seizo Kasume in the distance. The faceless prize. The far-off goal. He was simply walking past when it happened, deep in his own thoughts when they were interrupted.

"Hey there, handsome."

There was a woman, standing tall behind a row of vertical wooden planks, ornate with lovely carvings yet arrayed like prison bars. She was as decorated as a porcelain doll.

"Yes, you." She covered the lower half of her face with her sleeve, her movements coy, her eyes bright. "For only a couple of ryo I could be yours for tonight. Would you like that?"

Jin walked toward her, searching her demure face. She was just the same size as Shino, even the length of her hair. It would be a pleasure to have her. But that was not what he desired.

"Tell me," he said, and it was as if a spark went off in his head, lighting the tip of a long fuse. "Are you here on your own volition?"

The woman lowered her arm from her face, uncovering a slight frown. "I don't... understand."

"Tell me," Jin repeated. "If you wanted to leave would you be able to?"

The woman looked to her right and her left, but she was alone in her small room, and there was no one to hear her answer, save for Jin. And finally, after a long silence, she did answer.

"No."

Jin reached through the bar and grabbed hold of her wrist on instinct, because the woman had begun to back up, skittish as a rabbit in a clearing. The defeated look in her eyes reminded him of Shino and he knew what he was supposed to do.

"Tell me," he went on. "Do you want to leave?"

He knew when she gave a short sharp nod that this woman would only be the second of many. Jin had set his course.


	6. Directionless Dogs (Part 3)

There was a monster on the loose somewhere on the mountainside.

People whispered to each other about it over drinks, over campfires, under the blankets. Bodies always turned up (such was the way of life) but never in these alarming numbers.

Of course they were usually no one to be concerned with. Thugs, no-goods, bums, the lot of them were troublesome and the world was a better place without them. But really, to find a new death each day was frightening, criminals though they may be. Whoever was killing them was surely an evil beast.

. . .

**Directionless Dogs (Part Three)**

**. . .**

As usual, the masses had mythologized a lesser story. The first criminal to die only died because he looked at a madman the wrong way.

"Fuck off," the madman had said.

That hadn't sat well with the criminal, and thus he had found himself cut to pieces a few minutes later.

The next man to die was cut down because he tried to mug the madman. (There was a lesson in there somewhere, but every person to repeat the story told it differently, and it was stretched until it meant next to nothing).

The next man to die put up quite a fight. He'd been taunting every man with a sword for three square miles, picking a fight with everyone he could find. He happened to pick a fight with the wrong guy, and he died right in front of four members of his gang.

On the first night after the snow had melted, two men sparred in an alley, sending cats scurrying away into the night.

"You're the one, aren't you?" the merchant spat through a mouthful of blood. "The one that's going around killing criminals."

"Eh?" The madman lowered his sword ever so slightly, a look of confusion crossing his face. "What, those guys were criminals?"

The merchant flapped his jaw. "You didn't.. You weren't...?"

The madman shrugged his shoulders in a frazzled, 'no skin off my back' kind of way.

"I can't fucking believe this. You're no vigilante... You're just a murderer."

"All those—" he punctuated his sentence with heaving blows of metal that rang off the other man's petty sword, "—jackasses—" (ring) "—were askin'—" (ring) "—for it!"

"Piece of shit samurai," the merchant said as his sword was kicked from his grasp. He buckled and fell to his knees, clutching his broken hand.

"Shouldn't've called me that," the madman answered before delivering a rib-crunching kick that knocked over his foe. "How many times I gotta tell you I ain't no samurai?"

"You're gonna kill me over a couple of words?"

The other man stood silhouetted against the moonlight for a long, tense moment, then slung his sword over his shoulder. "Guess not. ...Don't really feel like it."

The merchant blubbered on the brittle grass, looking whiplashed. "You're... Did you kill all those people because you _felt_ like it?"

The madman wrinkled his face in a mixture of disgust and contemplation, and promptly turned to walk in the opposite direction. "Peace," was all he said, and the man was gone.

.

.

Mugen sat with his back to a building on the outskirts of town, frowning hard. He took out all his frustration on his sword, which he was sharpening with an ordinary rock. Jin would have busted an eye vessel just watching the atrocity of Mugen's blade-sharpening ritual. (It involved zero strategy—just grind grind grinding at whichever part didn't feel sharp enough.)

He glared at his blade like it was the one at fault here. "What_ gives?"_ he complained loudly, to no one.

Fighting just didn't thrill him anymore. No matter what he tried, no matter how skilled the opponent. It just didn't even ruffle his feathers. He couldn't remember the last time his adrenaline had been pumping. He felt starved.

Okay, that was a lie.

Mugen _could_ remember, down to the very moment, the last time he'd felt the high of adrenaline coursing through his veins, propelling him forward even though all his muscles were trying to collapse to the ground in a heap. The dusty cross in the ruins of the church where he'd embedded his sword swam to the surface of his mind. He'd never been closer to dying than he had on that day. (_"Mugen—!"_ When the sound of his name had cut through the haze of gathering crows then, he'd thought hers was the voice of the angel of death, he really had.) Yet he'd never felt more alive than he had then, at death's door.

And he'd spent the last couple months trying (in vain) to recapture that feeling. The glory of it: the sweeping, the lifting, the empowerment. He'd felt _powerful._

Didn't matter how many bums he picked fights with now. Didn't matter who he fought, how skilled they were, or how incredible Mugen's victory was. It just never resonated. It didn't stand up to the rush he'd felt in the church, or under the waves with salt stinging his eyes as he brought his hand up to let it take the blow so he could go on living, because he had somewhere to fucking _be_. He didn't feel it like that anymore when he fought, that propellant churning down in his bones like gunpowder.

He attacked his sword again and again with the stone, making sure to get the very tip. Mugen wasn't an idiot, but he was stubborn. He was reluctant to admit that he already knew what his problem was. (That it wasn't about who he was fighting.) But, goddamnit, he was bored. He was tired of this—whatever 'this' was.

Nothing got Mugen agreeing to stupid ideas like feeling bored.

So later that night when a smallish boy tried to pickpocket the madman, he happened to be in a 'stupid idea' enough mood to not cripple the kid.

Instead, when he caught the boy's wrist and caused his coins to go rolling across the dirt, he asked suddenly, "Hey, y'ever met a girl who never shuts up about sunflowers?"

The boy spluttered and gave his head a vigorous shake.

"You should probably get a sword before you go 'round tryna pick pockets," Mugen criticized before shoving the boy away.

It was two days later that he saw the boy crying at the well.

"Oi," was all he said. The boy started, and made to run away. He was skittish, ready to run at anything. Mugen should've realized what the deal was before. He grabbed the kid by the collar and gave him a murderous look—one that didn't match at all with the words he said next. "I ain't gonna gut you! Stop squirming."

"What do you want?" he squeaked. Damn, he was a tiny little thing.

Mugen squinted at him. "What kinda trouble you in, kid?"

The boy blinked, the barest hint of water welling up in the corners. "Trouble?"

"Someone after you?"

The boy wrenched himself from Mugen's grasp, staring hard at the well. "Kind of.. It's not that simple."

"So, what—is he some kind of badass or something?"

The boy shrugged, despondent. "I guess. Why?"

Mugen grinned, almost manically. The boy stepped back, not sure what to make of this development, nearly tripping and stumbling into the mouth of the well in the process. Mugen shoved one thumb into his chest and embedded his sword into the ground with an unnecessary amount of force. (Jin would have ruptured a kidney.) He gave the kid the full-fledged madman look that he'd always tried to frighten Fuu with (it had never really worked like he wanted it to) and said, "Because_ I'm _some kind of _bigger_ badass, and I'm motherfucking _bored!"_

The kid slowly dropped his defensive stance, lowering his arms to his side as his eyes widened, the corners of his mouth lifting toward his cheeks in the beginnings of hope, the burst of fear that had come over him at Mugen's catlike grin fading away, until when his arms finally rested against the stone of the well Mugen could tell without a doubt that the kid no longer feared him.

At the vanishing of the child's fear, Mugen died a little death. But something sparked too, something small, like the first spark of a bonfire. He ripped his sword up, scattering tufts of grass. He could admit it, if only to himself.

(That it wasn't about who he was fighting, it was about what he was fighting for.)


	7. Familiar Faces

**Footnote**: I've had this chapter written for SO long, so I'm ecstatic to finally be able to post it. This was the first chapter I started with when I began writing this so it was painful to have to wait so long to put it up. Bonus fact—originally titled "Double Discovery" but with that 3-part "Directionless Dogs" chapter I _really_ needed a new alliteration configuration.

* * *

><p>"I hope it rains."<p>

Outside the bar, all but the tiniest patch of stars in the east were obscured. The muted gray of the moon barely shone overhead through the gathering clouds. Fuu breathed the crisp air for the briefest of moments before withdrawing from the doorway with a polite dip of her head to the burly regular as he shoved his way past her into the establishment. She hadn't been talking to anyone in particular, which was fine, because no one answered. The man nodded to Fuu in recognition as the door flapped shut.

Someone from a table in the corner called for another round. She went to take care of it, leaving the sky on the doormat.

.

.

"Mugen, there are lights in the distance."

"I see 'em."

"You think we can make it there tonight?"

"We're sure as hell not sleeping in the woods." He glared down across the valley toward the faint yellow lights situated in a crest in the hills. They seemed not too far off, but it was hard to gauge the walking distance, the way the dark trees obscured the roll of the land. It'd been a long time since he'd been here last.

"But I'm so tired... Maybe we could just sleep for awhile and get there in the morning."

"Quit your whining. We'll be there soon enough. I ain't sleepin in the woods again." Mugen was in no mood to get soaking wet. The night wind was chill enough as it was. Getting caught in the brewing storm at this time of night sounded like a real shitty time. Besides, he was itching for warmth—the type only sake and a handful of tits could give.

A soft thud drove the pleasant thought from his mind. He scowled at Hiro, who had sat his lazy ass down in a pile of dried leaves.

"Get your ass up," he ordered, and hauled him to his feet by the back of his collar. "N'less you wanna freeze it off later."

Hiro wriggled himself loose and brushed the leaves from his clothes. "It's not that cold," he complained.

"No," Mugen admitted without looking back to check whether the kid was following or not. There was a generous patch of clear sky hanging directly over them. But all around there were gathering clouds. They hadn't gathered enough mass to spill, and the sharp smell of the impending storm wouldn't hit for a while yet, but Mugen had stood on a swaying deck for so many weeks of his life that he was never wrong. He jutted his thumb in the vague direction of the east, where the clouds were roving into the valley. "But it's gonna rain."

. . .

**Familiar Faces**

. . .

Fuu was laughing with her favorite customers when Mugen followed Hiro into the bar, and neither saw the other. He looked around while the kid pushed through the crowd in search of an empty table. Mugen was in search of something else. Someone to squeeze a lil bit. Because god damn had it been a long time since he'd been laid.

There were a lot of women in the bar so he scanned them quickly, assessing his options. Maybe once the kid passed out he would sneak out for a bit... _Nope, nope, too ugly, too old, you're pretty fine so maybe, no way, maybe, fuck no, maybe - definitely,_ he changed the last one as the waitress banged her fist on the table. Probably laughing. Maybe she was drunk. She looked good from this side, so maybe he should go and—

The cacophony in the bar leveled out to a ringing tone in Mugen's ears as the waitress stood with her tray and turned toward the kitchen. He got a full-on glimpse of her before the asshole next to her followed and blocked her momentarily from his view. A flashy blue fabric so bright it almost hurt, white petals weaved all up the sides around slender hips, but still those same beat up sandals, same long neck, too thin and too fragile, that knot of messy hair falling all over the place. That goofy ass smile. He scratched his stubble. The sounds of the bar filled his head again, and this time he could distinctly make out her voice in the middle of it all. Chirpy and obnoxious and commanding as ever.

Yep. It was her. Go figure. Right when he'd given up on finding her. Dumb broad!

He was snapped to attention when the hulking guy next to her put his hand on her shoulder and leaned in close to her ear, whispering something. Fuu shrieked and slapped him on the arm, but he only guffawed and pulled her back when she made to move away.

Mugen was across the room in a heartbeat, breaking the guy's wrist with a sickening snap as he wrenched his arm behind him. "Yo," he said coolly, drinking in Fuu's shocked recognition.

"Mugen—!" she gasped, and dropped her empty tray.

"Hey, you wanna lose your other wrist, buddy?" Mugen drawled as the man kneeling before him struggled to rise. "Don't think the lady's interested."

He shot Fuu a smirk. _You're fucking welcome,_ the smirk yelled. What he wasn't expecting was for the happiness on her face to suddenly contort into rage.

"Hey, get off of him!"

He was so shocked he actually let the bitch go. "Say what?"

"We were joking around, you freaking idiot! He's a customer! We're_ friends—"_

"You didn't sound too happy to me," he grumbled. Everyone in the bar had fallen silent and were staring at the pair of them.

The man on the floor began to crawl away under the cover of the tense silence, completely forgotten by Fuu, who had begun to turn a dangerous shade of red.

She let out a sound so pressurized she might have been a tea kettle near boiling, then stomped her foot and jabbed her finger at his chest, progressing as she yelled from finger jabs into the use of her flattened palms. "I can't believe you! You lousy, no good, stupid—stupid—you _jerk!"_ she ended lamely, for lack of a better insult. Mugen merely scratched his face, unphased by either her physical or verbal assaults. His disinterest only fueled her rage. "I can't believe you finally showed up after all this time and this is the first thing you go and do! What is wrong with you?"

"Um, miss..."

"What?" Fuu screeched, only to feel immediate guilt when she turned and saw the person who had spoken was only a young boy, maybe no older than ten.

The boy quailed at her words, but steeled himself and tugged again on her patterned kimono. "I really don't think you should talk to him like that." He worried at his lip after he spoke and wrung his hands together.

"And _why_ not?"

Hiro cast a sidelong look at Mugen, who was now eyeing them both with a oddly guilty look in his eye, like a man caught by his wife in a whorehouse. Fuu's interest piqued upon seeing Mugen's reaction to the boy, and she found her anger ebbing in the wake of her curiosity.

"This is _Mugen,"_ the boy pleaded, like he was introducing her to the human personification of death itself. "He's my bodyguard and he's really scary when he's mad, and you seem kind of nice so you should just walk away if you know what's good for you..."

She had stopped listening at the word bodyguard.

_Bodyguard?_

She repeated the word aloud slowly, like she'd never heard it before.

Mugen set his face, clutching his sword like she was attacking him. His tumultuous eyes dared her to say anything more about it. She didn't. She couldn't. She was so shocked. Eventually the silence must have got the better of him, because Mugen broke long before she would have found words to express her confusion.

"Yeah, so what?" He sheathed his sword with an air of surrender. "I'm good at it. Shut the hell up already."

Later when Mugen lay passed out drunk and cold on the floor of her one-room little shack, Fuu went outside and found Hiro watching the rain fall. She had so many questions for him. But it was Hiro who spoke first.

"That was amazing," he said with reverence.

"Sorry, what?" She was a bit distracted. What did he mean?

"Back in the tea house," Hiro went on, gracing her with a set of wide, disbelieving eyes. "I've never seen anyone talk to Mugen like that and live to tell the tale. I think I know who you are." His eyes danced as he pointed at her in triumph. "You're the girl who speaks of sunflowers!"

"Uh... Yeah." Fuu blinked in surprise. "I suppose that's me." The fact that Mugen had mentioned her, even if it was maybe only once, was not lost on her.

"He's been looking for you, then." Hiro yawned and stretched his legs on the dim patio. "Guess we found you."

"Yeah, I guess you did." She didn't know what to say. Under the sound of the rain she could hear Mugen snoring loudly inside. Same old Mugen. "Hiro... I have to admit, I'm completely astounded to find Mugen as your bodyguard." All the crap she put herself through winning Mugen's and Jin's loyalties was something she'd never think a kid this young could accomplish—at least, not without going crazy.

"Oh, that." Hiro laughed, picking at wet grass sprung up on the side of the porch. "Well, it's just till we reach Edo anyway. I'm going to live with my grandparents."

"Yeah but.. How the heck did you ever get him to agree to it?" This was Mugen after all.

Hiro eyed her like she'd asked something very silly. "I didn't. He was the one who offered."

Fuu surveyed Mugen's limp sleeping form with something like amazement. Was that so?

They listened to the rain and Mugen's snoring in amicable silence after that. Fuu thought about her own words: _same old Mugen._ She turned them over, kneaded them like dough, and considered throwing them away. But after a short while she decided they were still true._ Even_ in light of this latest and still more shocking discovery. (Mugen wanting to be a bodyguard—it seemed preposterous!) Yet, in every way she supposed he was still the same. People like him... They weren't capable of change.

Hiro continued to pull up wet grass and when he found a white flower he offered it up to Fuu with a slightly guilty smile. Fuu took it and, though it was wet, tucked it in her hair. She showed him inside and gave him the only bedding she had in the house, and while Hiro drifted into sleep Fuu noted that Mugen still slept with his limbs splayed in every which direction. He wasn't capable of change.

In the morning they were gone, and another white flower and a note from Hiro reminding her of their haste to Edo had been left on her doorstep as the only proof they'd been there. Fuu was filled with a specific kind of hollow empty ache whose acute tug she'd only ever felt a handful of times. When Jun and Naomi implored her that night to spill the beans, to tell if the crazy scarecrow who'd "saved her" yesterday was that very same bodyguard from her journey, she told them it must have been because Mugen was not capable of change. No, not of change, but... maybe of greater feats.


End file.
